Transfigured Hearts 23: And This Shall Be a Sign
by MrsTater
Summary: Christmas brings Remus to the Burrow, where everything makes him think of her, dream of her especially when Molly and Fleur see fit at every turn to remind him of why she isn't there. Hasn't time healed her wounds? An Order meeting will tell.
1. Part One

_This story follows **Hunger** in the **Transfigured Hearts** series, and is set during and after chapter sixteen of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Many thanks to **Godricgal** for her invaluable beta help. _

* * *

**Part One**

_Oh if you stir my cauldron…_

"I never knew," he says, pulling away from Tonks' mouth. His voice is husky. Can she hear him over the volume of the wireless? He leans close to her ear. "I never knew this song was so—"

He inhales sharply as Tonks shifts beneath him. Her feet trail over his calves, pulling at the sheets as her legs wrap firmly around his waist. Ankles crossing, her heels dig into the small of his back as her thighs press against his.

"Nice, isn't it?" she murmurs, breath warming his face in the staccato rhythm with which she pulls him closer and deeper.

"What's nice?" He might have meant to say the song was long, but his thoughts seem fuzzy. "The song, or…?" His fingertips trace the hollows of her hipbones as he rolls his hips against hers.

He almost misses her throaty, "Stirring it right," as Celestina Warbeck sings the same words in a duet with an off-key and familiar grating voice…

_Fleur Delacour?_

What is _she _doing downstairs in Tonks' flat?

Tonks' flat doesn't have a downstairs.

Or does it?

Bugger the flat. Upstairs and downstairs are no concern of his when he's lost in the depths of Nymphadora's dark eyes…

He meets her mouth, giving a small whimper of protest when her lips part in speech instead of kisses. "We should play this song at our wedding."

She arches up into him, and he slides his hands underneath her, cupping her bottom, pulling her yet closer. The embrace of her legs tightens. _Oh Merlin…_

_I'll brew you up some hot, strong love_

_To keep you warm tonight._

"I suppose," he says, chuckling low, "the lyrics invoke the idea of a wedding night."

Tonks laughs. The contraction of her muscles very nearly brings their lovemaking session to a premature end. He bites his lip and groans as he extracts his hands from underneath and cups them over her breasts. Her head, thrown back with laughter, makes her neck curve tantalisingly. He trails kisses up to her jaw and feels her pulse beat in a wild counterpoint to his own heartbeat.

"S'_ou_r song." Tonks turns her head and speaks breathlessly in his ear. "First time togeth—_Oh. God, Remus…_."

"In that case…" He interrupts himself with a half-groaned murmur of her name. "…we ought to have Celestina sing it _in person _at our wedding. I'll go down and ask her now."

Wait. He is in the middle of something he really doesn't want to end, and it isn't Celestina downstairs. It's Fleur, mimicking the singer at the top of her nasally voice. In shrill tones, Molly tries to jog Arthur's memory about when _they _had danced to the tune.

They must be dancing to it now. The floorboards are creaking and pounding.

Or is that the headboard?

"I reckon Celestina'd write a song for us," says Tonks. "'The Werewolf Who Married the Metamorphmagus.' With a very daft verse about the sort of babies we'll make together."

"Multicoloured werewolf cubs or some such rot."

Wonderful as kissing her neck is, he misses her lips. Raising his head, he sees a dreamy look on her face and pauses over her mouth.

"Beautiful blue-eyed babies," she sighs.

"I am rather partial to brown." Smiling, he gazes into her eyes (are they very dark brown, or black?) and watches them glaze as he rocks against her again.

They gasp together.

"Our babies will have beautiful eyes," he whispers, quickening their pace in response to her palms rubbing over his arms and chest, "but for now I am content to have only yours to get lost in."

Or he would have got lost, if not for Celestina Warbeck…

…Fleur…

…or Molly…

…sliding up the scale to a strident octave, which has an effect not unlike a cold shower.

He shifts, pushing up on his elbows, to caress and kiss Tonks' breasts. "Really now, Nymphadora…" Passion mounting again, he pauses for a shuddering breath before continuing, "this song's rubbish. Must we make love to it?"

Her lovely features slope in a sharp frown. "Dunno. You're the one dreaming it."

He blinks. His mouth falls open. "Dreaming?"

"You called it off."

Tonks' voice comes from somewhere other than beneath him, and he no longer feels the warmth and slight stickiness of her skin on his, but the cold dampness of crumpled bed sheets. The covers tangle around him as he sits up and turns around.

Thank Merlin, she's still here, just across the room. But she's pulled her boots on, and is buttoning her crimson Auror robes. The colour makes her grim face look very pale. Her hair is lank and brown.

"Tonks, I—"

From downstairs, Celestina croons,

_Oh, my poor heart, where has it gone?_

_It's left me for a spell._

"No." He shakes his head as he clutches the sheets – they smell like Tonks – winding them around his hands. "No, I let you go so your heart would not—"

Eyes hard and wild, Tonks' mouth opens and releases a frighteningly shrill soprano:

_And now you've torn it quite apart,_

_I'll thank you to give me back my heart!_

Remus Lupin snapped awake.

His heart was pounding, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He sat propped up on his elbows as he had been in his dream. The moonlight filtered through the gingham curtains and revealed a tangle of sheets around his waist. His flannel pyjamas clung to his clammy skin.

At his core, he ached.

The dream images had faded immediately, but his need did not. Even when it did finally subside after tortuous minutes of struggling against his traitorous imagination that would supply pictures of lips and curves and joined bodies, yearning continued to gnaw deep inside.

It was a feeling to which he had grown accustomed over the past six months, though only as a dull feeling he could ignore, like his empty belly.

But he had not dreamed like this before. Always he was careful to clear his mind before sleeping.

Tonight he had indulged too much in brooding over her. The Burrow, it seemed, made him lower his guard. The love songs, though daft, underscored his particular brand of melancholy.

And they nearly _had_ made love to _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love_.

They had talked of marriage and children as Celestina Warbeck crooned over Tonks' wireless. The real conversation had been less daft than – though not by much – the dream one.

No. It had been a dream, too. With a crueller, more dissatisfying awakening than unfulfilled desire.

His heart thudding once more at a regular tempo, Remus shivered as the chill of the bedroom crept through the worn fabric of his sweat-dampened pyjamas. Wearily he disentangled his legs from the sheets and swung them over the edge of the bed. Limbs trembling slightly as he put his weight on his feet, he shuffled to the bureau, next to which his carpet bag of spare clothes resided – against Molly's insistence that he unpack and make himself at home during his few days at the Burrow. He rifled through jeans and jumpers till his fingers brushed the worn fabric of a pair of lighter cotton pyjamas.

He unbuttoned his flannel top, but hesitated to don the fresh pyjamas. He had purposely not worn these to bed, not merely because it was a cold night, but because _she _had worn them once. The top, anyway.

Last summer when he had lived with her – if the few days between her release from St. Mungo's hospital and his assignment underground counted – Remus had emerged from the bathroom one night, wearing only the trousers, and found her curled up in bed wearing the shirt. Sharing one pair of pyjamas between them had struck him as a delightful, charming idea. She'd looked so adorable, with the long sleeves covering her hands, slender body swallowed in the flimsy garment, turquoise polka-dot knickers just peeking out from beneath the hem.

They had lain in bed for a long time that night, not sleeping, he tracing the smooth contours of her hips as the pyjama top hiked up around her waist.

A shiver coursed down his spine. Reluctantly, he pulled on the shirt in which Tonks had slept, yet he found himself disappointed that the shirt no longer bore the raspberry-scented evidence (whilst slathering lotion onto her legs and elbows, she had squeezed out too much and spattered the shirt) that she had worn it. It stank of mothballs, without a trace of her.

_Fool_.

He ran a hand through his shaggy hair and flopped back onto the bed. That was a long time ago. Six months. He had not seen her once in all that time. She had not been present at any of the Order meetings he had managed to attend. Always she was on duty at Hogwarts, or investigating a lead on a Death Eater.

What was she doing tonight? It was Christmas Eve.

Sleeping, no doubt, at her parents' home.

Or working. (However she was managing to juggle her hefty Auror load with her no less time-consuming Order work was beyond him. In all likelihood she was executing everything with a vast deal more success than he.)

_Not _hoping to catch his scent on any of her belongings.

Certainly not having erotic dreams about a werewolf who was foolish enough to throw away the chance at a life with her.

No matter how much he still wanted her, no matter how vividly she visited him in dreams, now matter how much he doubted his decision to end it with her on account of his mission, Nymphadora Tonks was out of his life.

She was asleep now, and dreaming of other wizards than him.

She laughed with them, and was beautiful.

He screwed his eyes shut against the images of his body entwined with hers, of gazing into her laughing face, and fought sickening jealousy at the idea of some other man losing himself in her eyes. He wanted her to be happy. Laughter meant she was happy.

_But was she?_

The last part of the dream nagged. _Give me back my heart_, she'd sung. Her hair had been the natural mousy brown she hated. He'd torn her heart apart.

No.

He rolled onto his side, drawing the quilts up under his chin and crumpling the pillow under his head as he tried to savour the luxury of sleeping in a proper bed. He was reading too much into dreams, which wasn't like him at all. It was just a stupid song. It was the eggnog and Bill and Fleur all over each other and Molly's reminiscing about dancing with Arthur and his own moping. He had weighed against them and found himself wanting, and had thrown himself a pity party.

Merlin, he thought, recalling Harry's face when he'd told him about his role as Order spy, he'd sounded so _bitter_. How could he have made such a slip in front of the boy? True, Remus was hardly _fond _of his assignment, and more often than not descended into doubt as to whether he was really accomplishing anything.

He rubbed a hand across his bleary eyes, burning with fatigue, and saw an edge of the waxing moon through a gap in the draperies. Soon he had to go back to the colony, and he would transform with them again. He had been lucky so far, without Wolfsbane, and running in the wild, that he had not done what the evil instincts urged him to do. How long would that luck continue? If it did overcome him, how would he feel about what Dumbledore had asked him to do?

"No," he said aloud, voice almost a growl, and he turned his back to the window.

If Dumbledore thought it was important that he continue, he would. By no means must he give Harry reason not to trust Dumbledore's judgment. Harry's trust had been damaged enough by Sirius' death.

There was no denying it, no sense in resenting what was. He _was _ready-made for the job. He was a werewolf, and essential to the Order. Everyone was making sacrifices in this war, he no more than another.

But it seemed like more, said the ache in his core, always the source of his doubts, to sacrifice love as well as his very nature, likely as not…

_Nature_ was why he had broken it off with her. For her protection. For her happiness.

He lived outside the fringes of society. Tonks was at the centre of the Wizarding world. Even in the face of war, her future was bright. He could only mar that for her. Surely by now, after six months of separation, she was disillusioned of her romantic notions about marriage to a werewolf.

She had to be over him.

She had to.

Closing his eyes, he repeated the thought like a mantra.

But he did not sleep again.

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_**A/N: Sorry for the relative shortness of this chapter. The adult content, the whole dream sequence thing, and the paragraphs upon paragraphs sans dialogue were against my normal grind, to say the least, and I couldn't drag any of it out any longer. The next two chapters are a bit beefier. Feedback is greatly appreciated, and Remus will cheer up reviewers by starring in a steamy dream. And he promises not to go emo afterward. Though he might in the next chapter. **_


	2. Part Two

**Part Two**

Despite the fact that Molly's Christmas dinner would be his last proper meal till he checked in with the Order next month, Remus found himself utterly lacking an appetite. Between Harry's startling news of Tonks' changed Patronus, Percy's unexpected arrival, and the ensuing tension between the normally relaxed members of the Weasley family, Remus could not bring himself to remain at the table.

His chair legs scraping against the wood floor broke the awkward silence. "Can I take anyone else's plate?"

"You're company, Remus," said Molly distractedly, not taking her eyes off Percy. "You don't have to—"

"I don't mind." Remus forced himself to smile as he Summoned Ginny's and George's empty plates. He turned to Fleur, but she clutched hers and slipped off of Bill's lap.

"You wash, and I will dry," she said, glancing – as did her fiancé – to Molly, obviously for approval or at least acknowledgment.

Molly, however, was completely preoccupied with Percy.

Blue eyes hardening, Fleur looked for a moment as though might throw her plate at the door behind Molly. But she flicked her hair silvery blonde hair carelessly over her shoulders and smiled at Remus as she joined him at the sink.

As he placed the dishes in the basin and waited for it to fill with hot, sudsy water, Fleur darted her eyes up at him. Though a second ago she had been the picture of poise, she now caught her lower lip between her teeth. Clearly, there was something Fleur wanted to speak to him about.

What on earth could Fleur Delacour possibly have to say to _him_?

She did not say a word, however – nor, Remus realised as he shut off the tap, did anyone else. Even Molly seemed to have been robbed of her faculties of speech.

He tried to ignore the mounting tension by fixing his gaze out the window at the garden as he scrubbed the plates. Scrimgeour appeared to be quizzing Harry quite as rigorously as an OWL examiner.

"Oh Percy!" cried Molly suddenly, and with too much enthusiasm. "How wonderful that you were invited to—"

Remus did not hear where Percy, who apparently had struck up conversation, had been invited, because Fleur snatched the plate he'd just cleaned.

"Even ze prodigal son eez treated better zan me," she said n tones lower and throatier than usual, rubbing the plate furiously with the dishtowel,

Though Remus wanted to point out that Arthur treated Fleur with enough warmth, and the twins seemed thrilled with their brother's choice of bride, he suspected the latter would give Fleur no real comfort. It was true enough that Ginny's cold regard toward Percy was more cordial than her open hostility toward Fleur; and Molly had never feigned enthusiasm for her daughter-in-law-to-be. Remus wanted to encourage the young woman, but there seemed no way to bolster her.

Nor did Fleur seem to expect any such thing, at least not from him. She went on, a little louder, "I deed not mean to eensult Tonks. She _eez _clumsy, no?"

Remus nodded weakly as he half-heartedly rinsed another plate.

With another shake of her shining hair, Fleur sent the dried plate to the cupboard and snatched another from him.

"Zat eez a _fact_," she spat, shooting a look in Molly's direction that surely had the power to wither if Molly had met Fleur's eyes. "And yet zey treat me like a villain for saying so. Zey theenk I do not like her, or zat I am jealous." She gave a snort of laughter. "How could _I_ be jealous of any woman?"

Battling his own defensive instincts, reminding himself that tactlessness and conceit were Fleur's ways, and generally not meant to harm, Remus managed to shrug.

Suddenly, Fleur's proud frame wilted.

"I am sick and tired," she said, "of coming here where zey sing ze praises of Tonks. Tonks eez not marrying Bill. _I _am." She added, more quietly, "But Molly will not even _try _to like me. She knit a jumper for you. And zere eez one for Tonks – I saw Molly send ze owl." Lower lip quivering, eyes huge and luminous, Fleur's hair fell in her face as she sadly wagged her head. "But nothing for _moi_."

What lurid colour jumper had Molly knit for Tonks this year? What pattern was worked onto the front? He hoped, wherever Tonks was – surely not spending the holiday alone, as Molly thought she was – it brought a smile to her face. Last year they had laughed together over their jumpers, then worn them proudly to supper.

"Would you like mine?" Remus offered lightly.

Fleur smirked at his jumper, emblazoned with a grindylow. "Ze oatmeal colour would not suit my complexion."

"Oh yes. Of course."

They fell silent as Molly stopped talking, but when Bill addressed his younger brother, Remus said in a hushed voice, "I know this is not about jumpers, Fleur. I'm sorry."

Appreciation flickered across her beautiful features, but then her face took on the fierceness of a veela.

"So will Molly be. Eef she eez trying to run me off, eet will not work. And eef she wants Bill to look at Tonks, zat will not work eizer."

It was on the tip of Remus' tongue to praise her conviction, when Fleur added, "Anyway, Tonks does not want to be looked at. She has let 'erself go."

"What?" The plate he was washing slipped out of his hands, splashing dishwater on the front of his clothes and clanking when it struck the bottom of the sink.

At the table, several redheads turned to him with inquisitive expressions.

"I'm not breaking your dishes, Molly," said Remus with levity he did not feel.

Molly glanced at him with a vague smile, then turned back to Percy, nudging him toward his old place at the table, at which Remus had been sitting, and pressed him again to at least have a bit of pudding.

"What do you mean?" Remus whispered to Fleur. "What do you mean Tonks has let herself go?"

"Her 'air. Always she wears that 'orrible brown. And she eez as skinny as a boy." She arched a brow. "She eez lovesick."

The lingering image from his dream of Tonks, mousy haired and forlorn, forced itself to the front of his mind.

"No." Remus shook his head as he fished the plate from the murky dishwater and scrubbed at the dried gravy. "Tonks is fighting a war—"

"Of ze heart," Fleur interrupted. "'arry said her Patronus changed. Zat eez very rare. Eet means something."

It could mean anything. Tonks was under enormous amounts of stress. She was young, and facing the deaths of colleagues and loved ones for the first time; she was tired, overworked. Anything could have altered her magic. She'd lost a morph without realising it whilst investigating the Brockdale Bridge incident, and the Bones and Vance murders.

It could not be him. She had moved on…

"Zey say she cannot Metamorphose at all," Fleur said, taking the plate from him.

Remus clutched the edge of the sink as another image of Tonks leapt into his mind.

Her hair had gone brown the last night he'd seen her.

The look on her face then was the one he'd seen in his dream.

Surely she had not looked that way since…

Leaning heavily against the counter, he bowed his head. He felt like he might be sick.

Merlin. What had he done? Surely it was not right that he had sacrificed _her _for his mission.

"Eef I were Tonks," said Fleur, "I would not have stayed home pining. Eef ze wizard I wanted was here, zen I would have come after him. She should stand up for 'erself. Like _moi_. Bill's mozzer might not want me here, but I _am_ here, and I _will be_ here every time Bill eez. Because I know I am ze only witch for him."

Though insulted on Tonks' behalf, and though the weak part of himself said he had been a fool to end it with her, that he ought to go to her and beg forgiveness and ask if they could start again, Remus forced the thoughts back. Fleur might be self-centred, but her steadfastness in the face of Molly's unjustness was admirable.

He saw Tonks in her.

And though the looks Molly had given him when the subject had arisen during the meal, he still held out hope that Tonks' absence was as much an act of defiance as Fleur's presence was.

"You are a formidable woman, Fleur."

Her chin jutted as she regarded Molly, who was blinking hard against tears and trying to look pleased as Percy talked about the Christmas dinner he had enjoyed with a member of the Wizengamot.

"Of course I am," said Fleur. "I was a Triwizard Champion. I can outsmart dragons. I could be an Auror eef I wanted. And I _will _be Molly Weasley's—"

The door flung open, and a disgruntled looking Harry strode through, not looking at anyone as he headed for the stairs with an agitated gait. Scrimgeour stood on the stoop, expression hard on Harry's back, then affecting pleasantness as he regarded the Weasleys.

"I do hate to cut your time with your son short," said the Minister, "but Percy and I have other destinations…"

Remus did not miss the looks of relief on the young Weasleys' faces, but Molly swallowed hard and implored Percy, "You can't even take time off for Christmas?"

With a superior expression, Percy said, "It's wartime, Mother. Most of us have—"

The entire contents of a bowl of mashed turnips splattered his face.

"I'd better check on Harry," said Remus to nobody in particular, dashing for the stairs as Percy stormed from the house, the twins and Ginny gleefully owned up to the turnip prank, and Molly burst into tears.

Though Remus hated to trespass upon Harry's privacy, it felt wrong to completely ignore what had just transpired with Scrimgeour – there might be something the Order needed to know about. Fortunately, he found the door to Ron's bedroom wide open. Harry stood glaring out the window at the Minister and Percy, who had paused at the Apparation point while Percy wiped his horn-rimmed, turnip-splattered spectacles on his cloak. At the sound of the floorboards creaking under Remus' weight, the teenager turned.

"I hope I am not intruding." Remus shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

Harry shook his head of messy black hair.

"Judging from the Minister's rather artificially cordial smile," said Remus, leaning against the doorframe, "I presume he was not as _charmed _by the Weasleys' garden as he indicated he would be?"

Once again Remus was struck by how, without ever having known his father, Harry reproduced James' smirk exactly. There was an edge of defiance in the set of Harry's jaw and squared shoulders, however, which was more like Sirius than James. Remus couldn't help but smile faintly at how pleased it would have made Sirius to see how he'd influenced Harry even in their brief time together.

With another slight shake of his head, Harry said, "Scrimgeour wanted to know what Dumbledore's up to, and tried to bribe me into supporting the Ministry by promising me an Auror position when I finish school."

Despite an urge to gawp, Remus managed to return Harry's unconcerned smirk. How frustrated Tonks must be with her employers these days. Was the climate of the Auror department worse with Scrimgeour in a higher position? Remus knew little about Gawain Robards, the new Head of Aurors, but he suspected Scrimgeour had selected him because he would toe the line.

"He accused me," Harry's voice filtered through his jumbled internal monologue, "of being Dumbledore's man through and through."

Remus stood up straighter and met Harry's gaze levelly. The green eyes flashed with Lily's sense of decency and justice.

"I would be proud," said Remus, heart swelling a bit that perhaps, in spite of his errors last night, he had helped Harry come this state today, "to be accused of such an affront to the Ministry as that."

Harry's face split with a cheeky grin – but the smile did not fill his eyes. It suggested he would like to be alone now, a wish with which Remus sympathised.

Turning from the room with a renewed sense of duty, Remus supposed that an accusation of being Dumbledore's werewolf would have to do for him.

* * *

It was the quietest Christmas afternoon Remus had ever spent in company, and the most unexpectedly so, given his hosts. Even last year, in the midst of Arthur's harrowing near-death, the Weasleys had not been so grim. Today the twins and Ginny were particularly morose, showing bursts of liveliness only in miserable and futile attempts to make amends with Molly for the way they'd driven Percy from the house. Remus tried not to dwell on it – or on the looks Molly, repeatedly shot in _his_ direction, seated before the fire in the sitting room, whilst she cleaned the kitchen.

Did Molly expect comfort from him, as he had done last Christmas, when Percy had sent back his jumper?

Likely not.

She looked as vexed with and hurt by him for Tonks' absence as she looked with her children for Percy's.

Tonks had made the right decision in not accepting Molly's invitation. There was no holiday cheer to lend distraction from personal grief. His talk with Harry had reassured him that it was better not to see Tonks – no matter how much he might wish to resume his role of confidant, to have some influence in her life that would make sense of her Patronus change. He could not be a consistent figure in her life, nor was he in any way a pillar of strength.

As if Tonks could not stand on her own two feet.

That was why she had not come. It was wartime. She was focused. She was not allowing personal distress to affect her job.

But she _was_ suffering deep emotional issues, which took a toll beyond her control, and which were all his fault.

_Why hadn't she told him? _

"Take a turn with us, Remus?" Molly's voice broke into his musing.

Remus turned to see her and Arthur at the front cupboard putting on their outdoor things. Molly's tone had been gentle, but brooked no refusal. That voice of hers which even the twins never dared to disobey.

Reluctantly, Remus stood and left the warmth of the fire.

As the trio stepped out into the snow-covered yard, Molly wasted no time getting down to business.

"Harry told you about Tonks' Patronus, then."

"And…" Remus started to say _Fleur_, but did not want to give Molly an excuse to be perturbed with the young woman. "Someone else told me she cannot Metamorphose."

Molly looked momentarily horrified, then her gaping mouth twisted into a scowl as red-blonde eyebrows knit. "Who—?"

"I would have preferred," Remus interrupted, "to hear it from Tonks herself."

"When could she tell you?" Molly asked with a snort. "She's been respecting _your _wishes that you not see each other."

"Molly," chided Arthur mildly.

The redness fled Molly's cheeks as she heaved a deep sigh, and tears quenched the fire in her eyes. "She didn't want you to know. She thought you'd enough on your mind without worrying about her."

"Sounds a bit like someone else we know," Arthur said with a small, sad smile.

Remus flushed, hating how public this whole affair was. Everyone knew he had not told Tonks of his assignment prior to Dumbledore's announcement at an Order meeting. At least Arthur seemed to recognise he had meant to protect her.

It was a small comfort.

"You're a matched pair," said Arthur.

Remus shivered as slush seeped in through a hole in his shoe, drenching his sock. "Tonks was having difficulty before we…before _I_…called it off," he said hoarsely. "Emotional distress, being physically overwrought—"

"That's what she thought at first," said Molly. "But then her Patronus…Well, that sort of magic doesn't lie. She knew you were at the centre of it all when hers changed to a…"

"To a wolf," Arthur finished for her.

"To a _werewolf_."

In Remus' peripheral, Molly shuddered.

"Surely you see," he said, quickening his pace, "why she did not come today. It is completely understandable that she would not wish to spend Christmas Day with someone who has…done this to her."

A gust of frigid wind made Remus turn up the collar of his patched, threadbare coat and hunch his shoulders against the chill.

Huffing as she tried to match his brisk pace, Molly said, "Tonks thinks _you _won't see her."

Arthur's long strides brought him into step with Remus. "No one means to say it's _bad _Tonks' Patronus changed. If she couldn't cast one at all, now, that would be a problem. What's it matter what the form is? She's got security."

Remus spun so suddenly that he had to reach out and stop Molly with his hands on her shoulders so they wouldn't collide. Her blazing eyes – like blue fire – held him for a moment.

"Werewolves are not secure," he said, eyes fixed just past Arthur's shoulder. "They steal and kill…" His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "They destroy."

Molly was ghastly pale and tight-lipped, but Arthur, cheeks flushed and breath making almost jaunty puffs in the air, said lightly, "Come off it, Remus. _You _don't do any of those things. Isn't that why Dumbledore's sent you, to convince others with your condition that there are better ways of living?"

Remus' mouth opened with retort, but words failed as the wind swirled around them, howling its dissonant, mournful song. It was a sharp contrast with the bright sunlight, and it reminded Remus of howls.

Werewolf howls.

His howls.

It was his only voice, when transformation came upon him. He was powerless to stop it. They all were. His arguments fell upon ears that understood no other message.

"In any case," Molly tentatively broke the prolonged silence, "you've got a lot of unfinished business with Tonks. _Please_ go and see her."

"I can't," said Remus, backing away. "She's got to get over me."

Molly scowled. "Are you over her?"

Remus drew a long breath. "That, Molly, is entirely beside the point." He turned on his heel and started back to the Burrow.

"If you don't speak to her at the meeting tomorrow," Molly's shrill voice called after him, "I'll put you in a full-body bind till you do!"

* * *

_**A/N: Last chapter's reviewers are very much appreciated. I do thank you all for sticking with this continuing descent into angst. Remus would do well to follow our example, and plod through the rough times with another person, wouldn't he? Tell me what you think of this one, and you get to put Remus in a full-body bind. **_


	3. Part Three

**Part Three**

As Remus descended the basement kitchen stairs of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, his eyes instantly locked on Nymphadora Tonks. She sat at the far corner of the table, absorbed in quiet, grim conversation with Kingsley Shacklebolt.

It was an Auror's demeanour, and while not an attitude Tonks wore often enough that Remus considered it a dominant facet of her personality, he had seen her in action enough that he had never doubted whether she was suited to her career. And she had always remained Tonks. Even at her most serious, she had always exuded life and colour.

Now, if she had wanted to disappear into the dingy wallpaper of the old Black house, she could have done. As in Remus' dream, mousy brown hair lay flat against Tonks' head. Her robes parted to reveal a magenta jumper only Molly could have knitted for her, but instead of brightening her appearance, it accentuated her paleness and the dark circles under her eyes. Though her loose-fitting clothing made it difficult to tell for sure, her high and prominent cheekbones indicated that Fleur's description of Tonks as being "skinny as a boy" was not a huge exaggeration.

She looked tired.

She looked sad.

She looked…

…older.

As Remus followed the Weasleys to the table, Tonks' gaze shot past Arthur and Molly to fix on him.

Her dark eyes blazed, and looked huge and strange in her thin, white face.

Remus felt the gazes of the other Order members looking on curiously. His skin crawled under the intense scrutiny, and more than anything he wanted to stop looking at her. But he was paralysed by truth.

The hungry expression in Tonks' too-bright eyes confirmed his worst suspicions: she hadn't got over him.

Remus looked around the table for a vacant seat as far away from Tonks as he could get. However, Molly and Arthur had seated themselves in two of the three empty chairs beside Moody, leaving the one directly across from Tonks for Remus. With all these witches and wizards watching, most of whom likely wanted to hex him to next month for treating Tonks as he had, Remus had no choice but to take the seat. He felt oddly detached from his limbs as he pulled out the chair, and he tripped over the leg as he stepped around it, practically falling into it rather than sitting.

"Wotcher, Remus," said Tonks shakily. "Turning into me there?

"Evening, Tonks." He reached across the table to shake Shacklebolt's hand. "Have a good Christmas, Kingsley?"

In his peripheral, Remus saw Tonks' face and posture fall.

As Dumbledore called the meeting to order, her eyes remained fixed on the mahogany table. Remus tried to ignore the knot in his stomach; he had his report to give and others' to hear.

Molly caught his eye as he averted his attention to Dumbledore. She froze Remus with a tight-lipped glower and mouthed, "Talk to her."

He had no doubt she really would bind him in his chair.

Remus' frustration boiled, and Molly's pursed lips and irritated glances only made it worse. Why should he speak to Tonks? He had nothing to say to her that he had not said before, and if her trouble was that she had yet to move on, then it would not do for him to have any interaction with her that might give hope.

But his internal battle was effectively distracting him from Dumbledore's opening statements. Only when Remus looked at Molly and nodded in submission, did his thoughts settle and allow him to focus on Order business.

When the meeting adjourned, Remus stood and reached across the table to lightly touch Tonks' hand.

She inhaled sharply, and he noticed that the small hairs on the back of her hand rose as she shivered. Her eyes closed as though she were revelling in the contact.

Immediately, Remus withdrew his hand. "May I have an interview, Tonks?"

Beside him, Molly snorted, and Arthur quietly admonished his wife as he pulled her toward the stairs, which most of the Order had already ascended.

"An _interview_, Remus?" Tonks made a sound that could have been a repressed sob or a choked laugh. She rose from her chair, and as she sauntered around the long table continued, "That's formal. Fancy werewolf manners? _Do _you sit around sipping Wolfsbane potion and discussing politics?"

In spite of himself and his pang at having hurt her again, he chuckled at her reference to a joke he'd made the last time they were together. Judging from Tonks' small smile, which made her look a little more like her old self, his amusement genuinely pleased her. He noticed a new, quiet maturity about her. It made his heart constrict, though at he was simultaneously relieved that she could laugh, and that he could, too.

"This is how I like to see you." She stood so close that he felt as though her eyes, velvety with tenderness as they swept his face, caressed him. "You look sixteen when you laugh."

"I am afraid," he said, clearing his throat and stepping back from her, "that I far more frequently look every day of thirty-eight."

"You're not thirty-eight till March."

"One is as old as one feels. But I suppose I am belying my good breeding by discussing so course a topic as age."

Tonks' eyes narrowed, and her cheek muscle flexed as she tightened her jaw. "I don't think you're _that _polite. You didn't stop by mine or Floo or owl me Happy Christmas."

"I did not think you would welcome season's greetings from me."

"Why'd you think that?" Tonks shot back, arms folding across her chest in an imposing stance. But it was a voice raw with emotion in which she demanded, "Wouldn't you have welcomed them from me?"

Remus' shoulders sagged under the weight of her words. His hands, hanging at his sides, felt leaden. He wondered that they did not pull him to the floor as he sighed heavily.

"Molly said…" he began softly. "You didn't spend Christmas alone, did you?"

"I worked."

Remus' eyes fell to his shuffling feet. "Tonks—"

"I had lunch with Dumbledore at the Hogshead."

A little relieved, and considerably surprised, he looked up at her again. "What about the feast at the school?"

The corners of her mouth curved in a wry smile. "He likes Aberforth's turkey."

"I see," said Remus, smiling at the very clear picture he had of Dumbledore enjoying a meal at such an establishment as the Hogshead. "Do _you _like Aberforth's turkey?"

"I wasn't very hungry," Tonks replied. "How was Molly's?"

"I hadn't a great appetite myself."

Several moments' awkward silence settled over them, increasingly so for Remus as Tonks' steady gaze and slightly parted lips recalled to the front of his memory the images from his dream.

There was no doubt in his mind that if he gave in to the urge to take her in his arms and kiss her, she would respond with the same longing he felt.

"What a pair we are," Tonks said.

It recalled Arthur's similar comment, and roused Remus from the waking dream.

"That is precisely what I wish to speak to you about," he said. The voices of lingering Order members filtered from the upstairs hall. "Shall we step outside?"

As he held the porch door open for her, Tonks shot him a piercing look. "I know you know about my Patronus, so don't you dare try to play detached and reasonable with me."

The door banged shut behind him, and Remus found himself much closer to her on the porch than he would like. He stood straight and drew a deep breath as though to hold himself away from her.

"That is the whole problem, Tonks. Apparently I have not been diffident enough, or else you would still have _your _Patronus, and not some tainted—"

"Tainted?" Her mouth and eyes rounded with absolute bafflement, and Remus thought of Arthur saying no one thought ill of the change.

Turning at an awkward angle so as to avoid brushing against her, he shambled down the porch steps and into the yard, shoving his hands into his pockets, fumbling for his gloves.

He glanced around the garden. Snow and ice clung to skeletal rosebushes, and sharp blades of dead grass poked up through the dirty slush. The unkempt, gloomy setting seemed appropriate for the sort of discussion they were about to have.

But it had also been the location where he and Tonks had first revealed their feelings to one another. It was, perhaps, careless of him to reject her in this place.

How long ago that day seemed.

It _was _long ago. More than a year had passed.

So much had changed.

Sirius had been alive then. Tonks' hair had been brightest pink.

The snow crunched as she approached. He turned to face her. The sharp cheekbones, the drawn mouth, the old eyes…He glanced upward and drew a ragged breath. God, he'd never felt so ashamed.

Tonks had given him her full heart. He had returned it broken, emptied even of her colour.

"Your Patronus is a werewolf," Remus said. "Don't you see the irony that your spirit guardian is the very thing that stole your powers?"

Pale to begin with, Tonks now was the epitome of livid. "Who blabbed?"

"It doesn't matter," said Remus shakily, unable to put force into his words as he hoped. He had surprised himself with the blurted admission that _he_ – not grief or overwork or fatigue – was responsible for Tonks' inability to Metamorphose. She did not refute it. "But not Molly."

Tonks looked slightly relieved, but her body tensed as she crossed her arms again, her posture made her seem so small. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised. You were the only person other than my parents who didn't know."

Again she diffused him. "Is that why you didn't spend Christmas with them?"

She turned her head, and her profile was stony. "I told you, I had to work."

"Tonks…" He found himself reaching for her, but he withdrew his hand before he touched her chin, balling it into a fist and shoving it into his pocket so forcefully that he heard the fabric rip.

She looked up sharply. "You know I only went home for Christmas dinner last year because I hadn't an excuse not to." The glint in her eyes softened. "How could they understand? I didn't want to hear Mum bitch about you breaking my heart and me needing to move on, because it's not that simple."

"Isn't it?"

Though rebuttals were evident in each of her expressive features, Tonks merely shook her head and stepped around him.

In a surprisingly light – almost laughing – tone, she said, "So Harry recognised my werewolf?"

"He described it as a big four-legged thing."

She smiled slightly. "I reckon it wouldn't occur to a kid that his professor might have a love life."

Again he resisted laughter. "No. Especially as I am not a professor, and I haven't a love life."

Tonks' thin frame bristled. "D'you want to see it?"

It took a moment for him to register she was offering to show him her Patronus.

"I…" Remus cleared his throat and ran a trembling hand through his hair. "I see far more werewolves than I would like."

Immediately he chided himself allowing a degree of bitterness to slip into his speech as he had done during his conversation with Harry, as Tonks drew in a sharp, startled breath and regarded him with a deeply furrowed brow. He shuffled his feet as he wracked his brain for neutral words. But Tonks, turning abruptly to pace the length of the frosty flowerbed, spared him the trouble.

"Why'd Harry care, anyway?" she threw back over her shoulder.

"He didn't know Patronuses could change."

"It's so rare, I'd forgot till mine did," Tonks said in low tones. "Figures, doesn't it, that I'd have a morphing Patronus?" She let out a puff of mirthless laughter. "How'd you explain it to Harry?"

"Emotional upheaval."

Tonks stopped walking. Remus watched the rise of her shoulders as she drew a deep breath. "A textbook answer."

"It is a textbook case."

She whirled to face him. "My textbook never mentioned broken engagements."

The swift motion made her wobble slightly, but Remus, too, felt off-balance. "We were not—"

"Bollocks! That's bollocks, Remus, and you know it. You may not have knelt and put a ring on my finger, but we were as good as engaged."

Her bright voice echoed in the crisp air, and Remus glanced toward the house, half-expected to see a face pressed to the windows, eavesdropping.

"A year, Remus! We were together for nearly a year, and you threw me away!" she cried. "You didn't even _try _to make it work, and you let six months go by without so much as a single word! Didn't it occur to you that I'd be worried about you?"

"I checked in with the Weasleys—"

"Don't be ridiculous! That's not the same."

A hundred hot retorts, most of them beginning with "Don't _you _be ridiculous!" leapt to his tongue, but his conscience rendered him mute. Her words might not be fair, she might be oversimplifying the situation, but emotion had been bottled up inside her for six months. What was that Molly had said about unfinished business?

"If this is unresolved anger, Nymphadora, then I apologise for not giving you the opportunity to have it out before now."

For an instant she looked as if she wanted very much to hex him. "I've been mad as hell," she said in barely controlled tones, "at _Dumbledore_."

"At…"

Remus fell back from her, fortunately meeting the wide trunk of a tree, against which he leant heavily. It was cold out, but he'd broken into a sweat, and thought he might be sick, as he had after his dream.

"Oh, Tonks."

"I should have been mad at _you_," she said. "He…he didn't tell you not to be with me during your mission. That was all _your _doing."

Sudden vexation surged up in him that Tonks had not moved on because she'd misplaced blame.

"Dumbledore _never_ presumes," he said, "to tell any of us how to carry out an assignment. You ought to know that."

For just an instant, her eyes bent, and she bit her lower lip. Then she met his gaze again with narrowed eyes.

"Can you blame me for thinking it?" she shot back. "Does it make sense for a man to propose – or _sort-of_ propose –" she added with just a tinge of a mockery "—one day, then break up with no reason the next?"

Remus' retort caught in his chest as he drew in painfully cold air. When he exhaled, his breath a wraith-like swirl, the arguments that had fuelled his strength left. He sagged against the tree, and his eyes darted everywhere but at her.

No. From that point of view, it made perfect sense.

But it was a _young _point of view. A first love.

Straightening, Remus said, "As I said, I was a fool to think I could ever give you the sort of marriage you deserve."

"And _this _is what I deserve?" She clenched her fists at her sides. "Being pissed off at the last person in the world I should be because he's sent you on this damn mission? Because I hate it, Remus. It's bloody _changing _you. And I can't just watch Dumbledore sacrifice you—"

"You have no obligation to worry about me."

"Like hell I don't! I _love _you."

She stepped closer to him, un-balling her fists as she raised them, and pressing her palms to his face. Her touch was cold as ice, but he didn't flinch. He closed his eyes.

Her hands.

Her little, rough hands.

Her clumsy, but careful hands…

"I love you," she whispered, "and it hurts me to see this hurting you."

Opening his eyes, he saw that Tonks was, indeed, in agony. For him.

And it could not be.

He had to give her back her heart.

He caught her wrists and gently pulled them away from his face.

"This is why we should not see each other." He pushed her back and released her. "This…This is how it is for me. We all must make sacrifices in war."

"We all might have to _die_," Tonks corrected. "What you're sacrificing is worse than dying. Dumbledore never expected you to destroy yourself by cutting yourself off from the people who love you."

"Nor did he intend for me to destroy _you_. Please, Nymphadora. You need your powers back. Your life is ahead of you—"

"Not without you."

"And there is so much more for you than working through holidays—"

"But there's not for you? I'm sorry, Remus, but it's not your decision what's for me. I'm a soldier, too."

And a good one – there was no disputing that. She was focused. But how long could she keep up this way? She was older now. The past six months had matured her.

_Aged _her.

She was too tired, too resigned.

_Too like him. _

That damn Patronus was giving her a false sense of security.

"I'm sorry," he said, brushing past her.

"Did you stop loving me?" Tonks' called after him.

The question, echoing in the still air, stopped Remus dead in his tracks. He had skirted that topic throughout their conversation, but he couldn't avoid a direct question.

He could not lie to her.

He could not tell her the truth. It would give her hope. And there was no hoping, not for him.

"I know you still love me," she said, tremulously. "That's the only thing I'm sure of anymore." From behind, she slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his back. "That's why you're my Patronus."

Remus stood rigid in her embrace. He felt the slight swell of her chest against his back. She was holding her breath. Waiting for him to respond.

There was no response. He hadn't the slightest idea what to say, or how to understand that she saw this as a good thing, how everyone seemed to think this was a good thing. How could she be sure of _his_ love when there was nothing certain about him?

Tonks released her breath, and seemed to shrink as she slipped back from him.

"I've got to get back to Hogsmeade," she said dully. "Duty tonight."

As she retreated to the house, Remus found himself unable to let her go like that.

"Tonks," he called.

She stopped.

"Nymphadora." He swallowed hard, but his voice remained raspy. "Happy Christmas."

Tonks turned, stared at him for a heartbeat. "Christmas was yesterday."

But she flew back to him, and his arms circled her reflexively as she hugged him tightly.

"Please take care of yourself, Remus." She pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth, hard, for a split-second. "For me."

She sprinted back to the house without waiting for an answer – because it had not been a request. It was just as well, he thought as he dug the toe of his shoe into the snow, because he didn't have an answer.

_Everything_ he'd done, he'd done for her.

And he would give her back her heart…

If only she would take it.

_The End_

* * *

_**A/N: Thanks very much to all who have read this story, and especially to all who have taken the time to leave such thoughtful feedback. Your support is really amazing. The next instalment should be up pretty soon, as it's pretty much complete except for revisions. And Gilpin and I are hard at work on our joint fic – about half-finished now, though we do tweak things to death, so do keep your eyes peeled for it sometime in September. It's much lighter than Transfigured Hearts is at the moment, though Remus and Tonks never can make anything too easy on themselves. **_

_**Review this last chapter, and you may have an interview with Remus, who promises to exercise his werewolf manners – which may or may not be characterized by political conversations. :grin:**_


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